How does Taiwan mark Exam season?
分科測驗
- Local date
- July 10, 2027–July 11, 2027
- When is it?
- Mid-July every year, for two consecutive days; the dates are announced by the College Entrance Examination Center in its exam prospectus.
The Advanced Subjects Test is Taiwan's second stage, two consecutive days in mid-July — July 10–11, 2027 for the 116th academic year. It mainly serves two groups: candidates who did not get the department they wanted through application, and those who planned to go through the placement route from the start. Unlike the GSAT's ability-test framing, this one tests subject depth and its scores feed directly into placement. Taiwan therefore has two peaks a year, January and July, with the application and interview season from March to May in between. That "two major exams in one year" structure is unusual among the seven places compared here.
學科能力測驗（學測）
- Local date
- January 22, 2027–January 24, 2027
- When is it?
- Late January every year, for three consecutive days; the dates are announced by the College Entrance Examination Center in its exam prospectus.
Taiwan's first stage is the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT), run by the College Entrance Examination Center over three consecutive days in late January; the brochure for the 116th academic year sets it at January 22–24, 2027. The GSAT is positioned as an ability test rather than the whole verdict: it determines application thresholds and which departments are open to a candidate, while admission still depends on each university's second-stage screening, which includes portfolio review and interviews. So January is not the end point for Taiwanese candidates but a narrowing of the field; the real sorting happens in the spring application and interview season, and for those who miss out, in July's Advanced Subjects Test.
What is this topic?
Every country here runs a national test that decides university places, but how tightly that decision is compressed varies enormously. China squeezes it into two days, June 7 and 8. Brazil does the opposite, spreading it across two Sundays a week apart in November. India goes further still, dispersing subject papers across nearly two months. Japan and Taiwan run a two-stage system: one national test, then each university's own. The United States is the only place with no national entrance exam at all. The same question — how an eighteen-year-old should be measured — gets seven different answers.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.